3 Things Popularized By Facebook Profile Picture Jealousy

After walking through things we hate about Facebook News Feeds last week, here we are again talking about social media. We promise to get back to Disney movies soon.

1. Color Festivals

Indian dance, drama, musical concerts, good food, exhibits, and gifts are what make Spanish Fork's Festival of Colors a popular attraction for people from all over the state of Utah.

Ha, just kidding. 

Despite being a most excellent place to learn about and celebrate a Hindu culture that most college-aged Utahns know next-to-nothing about, the festival is popular for one reason, and that reason is throwing ground-up chalk on strangers while you jump around like a total moron.

...And then of course posting an album of colorful "selfies" on Facebook immediately after, accompanied by about 1,000 hashtags so everyone will know how extraverted you are, and how you like to go out and do things. 

Spanish Fork's color festival occurs sometime mid-August, right before the start of fall semester at several major Utah universities. School starts, students meet new friends, everyone tracks everyone else down on Facebook, and boom — the color festival trend is spread year after year by people who will "totally be doing that next year!"

2. Color Runs/The "Tough Mudder"/Other Obstacle Course Events

These events exist for attention-whores. We here at Mind Grenades actually know some real-life hardcore runners, and we're pretty sure they'd never go near any of these events. There are plenty of races out there to challenge actual athletes looking to accomplish an impressive feat, like the Ironman triathlon, which consists of 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride and a full freaking 26.2-mile marathon run, raced in that order and without a break. You don't see a lot of selflies on Facebook following an Ironman Triathlon, because

1. It's rare to even know someone who's actually done it- thus the appeal of completing the event. 

2. After completing an Ironman, most people look like this:

People know it's impressive to run a marathon or an Ironman, but that actually takes training and stuff, so events like the "Tough Mudder" and other races that use obstacles as gimmicks to draw crowds try to mimic the sense of accomplishment earned by the Ironman finisher without forcing their participants into near-cardiac arrest. The result is a bunch of big-headed college kids who believe what the Tough Mudder website is selling:

"Tough Mudder is a 10-12 mile (18-20 km) obstacle course designed to test all-around strength, stamina, teamwork, and mental grit. Tough Mudder is Probably the Toughest Event on the Planet. Probably."

Yeah, no.

Of course, the Tough Mudder people are supposed to say ridiculous things like that — the marketability of their event depends on people talking about how "hardcore" it is. Take about 60 seconds to explore that website. You'll notice you start reading everything in that voice that directs those Ford F150 commercials, because each word of self-promoting garbage oozes of "This event will put hair on your chest and make you a man/make you a strong independent woman who don't need no man!"

Here's the deal: real "hardcore" events are trained for and earned, and thus respected for being something the majority of people will never accomplish. Running a 10k through some mud and taking pictures afterward like you just survived freaking judgement day isn't hardcore, it's just an excuse to post pictures to Facebook without makeup.

Not all "non-traditional" races are necessarily bad, but they all know you'll pay $50 for a T-shirt and a three-mile run because you're going to selfie the crap out of their event and keep their numbers of participants skyrocketing.

You train for and complete a marathon to prove something to yourself; these expensive gimmicky runs exist to add some spice to your desired social media persona.

3. Graffiti, Cliff-Jumping, and Other Illegal Summer Activities

As noted here, some activities your Facebook friends have been getting into this summer are probably less-than-legal, but make pretty great profile pictures. Or classy wedding photos. Because Utah.

There was originally more to this section of this post, but it's kind of depressing to talk about newly-married people dying from botched base-jump attempts at Zion's National Park, so just trust us on this — no matter how awesome your buddy's cliff-diving picture is, know that he's lucky the universe didn't decide to snap his neck. Don't do anything illegal this summer, even if you think it will get you more "likes", and don't suffer from profile picture envy. Live your life.

-L

A Quick Summary of Your Facebook News Feed

This post began as a simple Facebook status, before blossoming into an embarrassingly accurate summation of what I believe we all see on our news feeds day after day. Yes, I realize I risk offending literally every friend I have on Facebook over this one post. I'd hope that we could all see the humor in how formulaic our social habits have become. If not…….oops.

Let's take it from the top:

Some pics from my adventure to some exotic locale!

Yeah we get it, Europe is awesome. So are beaches. Guess what the last thing we want to see on our feeds happens to be? Well, pregnancy photos actually, but we'll get to that later. Have you ever experienced taking a lunch break from stocking shelves at Walmart just to see your buddy's endless vacation pictures? That's a real painful life-evaluation moment. 


Federal Judge Strikes Down Oregon's/Some Other State's Gay Marriage Ban!

100% of your Facebook friends are thrilled about it! That, or maybe those friends of yours who aren't thrilled about it have just kept a lid on it to avoid being called an intolerant bigot by friends and family. 

"Now that I'm a wise twenty-something, it is my right to hastily label any beliefs that 

conflict with mine as "intolerance." — Everyone

At least three status updates per hour read "Oregon FINALLY sees the light" or something to that affect, which makes us wonder how that makes certain groups feel about having to wait nearly 200 years for their rights to be recognized.

1776-1964 was a long freaking time.

Raising politics, science, religion and other important topics to the plane of discussion is an important exercise for any responsible citizen to engage in. It's also really freaking stupid to do on Facebook. 

Nobody cares about your political opinion enough to click the "view more comments" link and fully grasp the context of your undoubtedly insightful comment. People are on Facebook because they have nothing better to do; it is a place to think about nothing. Even if your comment gets several "likes," it just means some people read your first sentence and were like "Yeah I think I like where you were going with that…but I ain't got time to read no paragraph of text."

Every internet argument over a significant issue will always boil down to "Well I guess we just think differently about things," which many would consider a positive attribute of our human nature.

I have been pregnant for the last 8 months, it's time for photo updates!

No, it isn't. *

You know this person. I know this person. We like these people. We have nothing against them. Nothing except the constant stream of bare-belly progress photos and indecipherable ultrasounds coming from the understandably excited soon-to-be parent. Every child born in the 21st century doesn't need its own Truman show level coverage. In fact, everyone should take a break from Facebook and go watch the Truman Show right now. 

*If you are now pregnant or may become pregnant, Mind Grenades strongly advises against seeing 'Prometheus'.

Also, under no circumstance do you ever need to show your bare stomach to the internet. Cool scar? Don't wanna see it. New piercing/tattoo? Still don't wanna see it. Working on your six-pack? 

Hey guys if you didn't already know, I've been going to the gym for the past 18 months!

"You prolly didn't know, though."

We all have a gym friend. To a degree, we are all equal parts happy for and jealous of said gym friend. It's not so much the picture updates that get on our nerves; if anything, that's excellent motivation to stop staring at rectangular screens for an hour and to get outside. What really sucks about the gym friend is that 99% of the time, the gym friend is also the hashtag abuser and #instagram #addict.

Signs you may be an instagram addict:

1. You refer to it as your "insta"

2. You check daily how many followers your "insta" has

3. You gain self-worth from attracting insta-followers, who are actually only following you because they themselves are trying to attract more followers.

We GET it. Everyone loves everyone.

Signs you might be a hashtag abuser:

1. You use hashtags.

It's about this point on your news feed when BuzzFeed starts posting sponsored links with titles like "OMG #13 is so true, you'll die laughing when you find out."

Then comes a sweet looking picture of something delicious.

"Made these today ;)"

Right after that is the conservative, borderline anarchist conspiracy theorist friend.

The friend who posts stuff about gun rights occasionally is not who we're talking about. We mean the guy that's on a one-man mission to impeach Obama, who thinks he looks like this:

But in fact comes off looking like this:

Mostly he posts obscure links that, if true, would probably be broadcast on more reliable news outlets. Except remember, the media is out to brainwash us all into being subservient citizens, and only a few know the truth. Which is why the country isn't divided at all over every major issue facing our generation.

Time for the Jack Threads advertisement!

Now is when most people realize they've browsed Facebook for too long and really need to do something with their lives. Scrolling down further than the Jack Threads ad means you truly are bored and/or don't have a Netflix account.

That's all for this post, hopefully feelings are not hurt too bad. Because come on — we managed to reference How I Met Your Mother, Jim Crowe laws, BroScience, Josie and the Pussycats AND John Malkovich's character from RED all in one article.

-L